A  CHAT  ABOUT 

SAMUEL  MERWIN 


By  ROBERT  CORTES  HOLLIDAY 


(  LIBRARY 


BELONGS  To 


A   CHAT  ABOUT 
SAMUEL  MERWIN 


SAMUEL  MERWIX 


A  CHAT  ABOUT 
SAMUEL  MERWIN 

Containing  also  a  list  of  his  pub 
lished  volumes,  together  with  sundry 
excerpts  from  critical  appreciations 

BY 
ROBERT  CORTES  HOLLIDAY 

AUTHOR   OF 

Walking  Stick  Papers,  Broom  Street  Straws,  etc.,  etc. 


Portrait  Frontispiece 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright  1921 
THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


A  CHAT  ABOUT 
SAMUEL  MERWIN 

BY 
ROBERT  CORTES  HOLLIDAY 

ONLY  quite  recently  there  has  been 
manifest  in  the  United  States  a 
tendency  to  possess  our  own 
authors  more  fully  with  our  minds 
— to,  so  to  say,  take  them  apart  and  see  what 
makes  them  tick.  .  You  haven't  really  come 
into  the  full,  rich  ownership  of  an  automobile 
until  you  have  tinkered  with  its  innards. 
Same  way  with  books.  Just  to  ride  in  them 
(fancy  way  of  saying  just  to  read  them) 
does  not  give  you  anything  like  the  intimate 
regard  for  books  that  you  get  by  (in  a  man 
ner  of  speaking)  crawling  in  under  them  on 
your  back  and  looking  up  at  their  works; 
possessing  them  and  their  creators  more  fully 
with  our  minds.  Yes,  that  is  what  I  want 
to  say. 

The  English  have  had  this  "possession  of 

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SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

their  authors"  for  a  long  time;  they  know 
about  their  popular  writers,  they  weigh  them 
and  appraise  them,  give  thoughtful  considera 
tion  to  them  and  value  them  for  what  they 
are  worth. 

In  this  land  of  ours  where  everybody  can 
read  and  few  do,  we  dismiss  the  author  as 
a  man  who  has  written  a  book,  and  let  it  go 
at  that.  We  like  to  meet  him,  or  at  least 
we  like  to  say  we  have  met  him;  but  when 
we  do  we  don't  know  what  to  say  to  him. 
We  feel  we  ought  to  talk  about  his  books 
but  we  are  afraid  of  getting  in  over  our 
heads.  If  we  knew  the  author  as  well  as 
his  books,  we'd  know  better  than  to  talk  to 
him  about  them,  and  so  would  not  suffer  from 
literary  stage  fright  at  the  mere  thought  of 
breaking  bread  with  a  best  seller. 

I  have  heard  it  offered  as  a  strange  anomaly 
that  we  remember  titles  of  stories  and  of 
books,  but  forget  the  names  of  the  authors 
responsible  for  them.  It  isn't  strange  when 
you  come  to  think  about  it.  We  are  simply 
more  familiar  with  the  product  than  we  are 
with  the  producer.  We  say  Linda  Condon; 
but  when  we  do  we  don't  register  Her- 
6 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

gesheimer.  You  do,  of  course.  I'm  not  talk 
ing  about  the  literary  in-group ;  but  only 
about  the  outlander  who  reads  because  he 
must — to  kill  time. 

If  he  can  be  given  an  interest  in  the  author 
as  an  author,  if  he  can  get  through  a  dis 
cussion  of  the  man  something  of  a  critical 
interpretation  of  his  work,  it  would  be  stimu 
lating  both  to  the  appreciation  and  the 
production  of  a  real  native  literature. 

It  is  a  highly  pleasurable  thing,  I  think, 
to  enjoy  one  by  one  the  novels  of  some  writer, 
more  or  less  heedless  of  anything  beyond 
their  power  to  entertain,  and  then,  being 
lured  (through  their  attraction  as  stories) 
into  a  more  thoughtful  scrutiny  of  them  in 
a  bunch,  to  discover  that  their  author  is  a 
good  deal  more  of  an  artist  than  you  had 
taken  the  trouble  to  suspect — than  perhaps 
he  is  popularly  supposed  to  be.  This  has 
just  been  my  experience  with  the  books  of 
the  man  I  am  here  venturing  to  talk  about, 
talk  much  more  briefly  than  I  should  like  in 
considering  him  and  his  output.  I  have  lately 
undertaken  to  put  two  and  two  together  in 
my  head  about  Samuel  Merwin,  and  I  find 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

(very  much  to  my  satisfaction)    that  in  his 
case  the  result  is  five. 

I  cannot  say,  and  certainly  I  didn't  mean 
to  imply,  that  I  am  the  fellow  who  discovered 
that  Mr.  Merwin  is  an  American  author  of 
real  consequence.  Maybe  you  yourself  found 
out  that  sometime  ago.  At  any  rate,  the  fact 
was  discovered  and  by  a  "furriner"  too.  It 
took  foreigners  (they  tell  me)  to  discover 
the  genius  of  Poe  and  Whitman.  And  we 
over  here,  who  are  foreigners  to  them  over 
there,  first  (I  have  heard)  gave  substantial 
appreciation  to  Carlyle  and  Meredith.  How 
ever  all  that  may  be  (and  I  have  no  thought 
of  placing  Mr.  Merwin  in  the  company  of 
the  illustrious  dead),  away  back  in  the  first 
month  of  1912,  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  was 
writing  in  the  North  American  Review  on 
The  Future  of  the  American  Novel.  He  ob 
served  that  "all  the  minute  depicting  of  the 
thousand  forms  of  local  life  in  America, 
which  is  now  so  prominent  a  feature  of 
American  fiction,  is  a  mere  preliminary."  In 
his  view,  "the  great  novels  of  the  future  will 
spring  from  the  action  and  reaction  of  place 
on  place  and  activity  on  activity."  And 
8 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

"They  will  certainly  be  of  two  kinds — 
the  two  kinds  that  have  always  persisted  and 
always  will  persist — the  purely  romantic  and 
the  romantic-sociological,  the  Dumas  kind 
and  the  Balzac  kind.  Of  the  former  two 
clever  prototypical  specimens  that  have  im 
pressed  me  are  T^he  Short  Line  War  and 
Calumet  K,  both  written  in  collaboration  by 
Messrs.  S.  Merwin  and  H.  K.  Webster. 
Calumet  K  especially  disengages  the  sheer 
romance  that  lies  concealed,  for  instance,  in 
grain  elevators,  contract  jobs,  and  wheat 
manipulations." 

Then  Mr.  Bennett  passed  on  to  declare 
that  in  this  kind  of  thing  Frank  Norris's 
Octopus  "succeeds  where  M.  Zola  has  again 
and  again  failed." 

And,  by  the  by,  in  the  way  of  another  early 
"testimonial,"  I  seem  to  have  heard  that 
Cyrus  Curtis  has  always  given  credit  to  Calu 
met  K  for  having  had  much  to  do  with  put 
ting  The  Saturday  Evening  Post  on  its  more 
than  a  million  legs. 

Why  is  it,  I  ask  myself,  that  Mr.  Merwin 
is  to  my  own  view  so  interesting  a  writer? 
First,  of  course,  because  I  find  him  so  enter- 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

taining.  And  (to  employ  our  current  popu 
lar  colloquial  exclamation),  How  does  he 
get  that  way? 

Well,  for  one  thing,  Mr.  Merwin  is  en 
tertaining  because  his  books  are  full  of  ad 
venture,  whether  the  scene  is  the  society  of 
flappers  and  hobbledehoys  in  a  Chicago  sub 
urb,  as  in  Temperamental  Henry  and  Henry 
Is  Twenty;  politics  and  newspaperdom  in  a 
Middle  Western  town  as  in  The  Citadel; 
"Village"  life  adjacent  to  Washington  Square 
as  in  The  Trufflers,  or — perhaps  best  of  all 
— the  colorful,  mystery-laden,  polyglot  cities 
of  far  China :  The  Charmed  Life  of  Miss 
Austin,  Hills  of  Hanf  and  his  latest  story, 
In  Red  and  Gold. 

Speaking  of  adventure  pure  and  undefiled, 
if  anybody  knows  of  a  book  with  more  ad 
ventures  in  it  to  the  square  inch  than  in  The 
Charmed  Life  of  Miss  Austin,  I  wish  that 
"anybody"  would  tip  me  off.  These  tales  of 
the  Quixotic  madcap  of  a  slip  of  an  American 
girl  who  moves  through  an  Oriental  scene 
amidst  a  maze  of  thrills,  saving  people's 
lives,  setting  them  on  their  feet,  and  never 
quite  getting  destroyed,  have  the  zest  and  go 
10 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

of  Stevenson's  New  Arabian  Nights,  and 
Miss  Austin  is  altogether  as  delightful  in 
her  way  as  the  celebrated  young  man  with 
the  cream  tarts  whose  "spirit,  sir,  is  one  of 
mockery."  If  it  is  rather  difficult  to  give 
complete  credence  to  such  a  series  of  rapid 
fire  adventures  as  are  here  encountered,  you 
at  least  believe  in  the  people  themselves, 
every  time.  The  little  character  sketches  are 
quickly,  neatly  and  very  surely  done.  Though 
Merwin  is  usually  a  novelist,  and  sometimes 
a  rather  deliberately  moving  novelist,  the 
chapters  here  are  models  of  the  brisk,  O. 
Henry  type  of  short  story,  with  a  whip 
cracker  at  the  end. 

Then,  another  thing,  literary  critics  have 
observed  that  humor  is  a  quality  conducive 
to  entertainment.  This  has  also  been  a  fact 
of  my  own  experience.  Well,  diligence  is  not 
required  to  discover  abundant  humor  in  Mr. 
Merwin.  Indeed,  I  should  say  that  a  very 
high  degree  of  diligence  would  be  necessary 
for  the  reader  to  avoid  being  drenched  by 
humor  in  such  books  as,  say,  Temperamental 
Henry  and  Henry  Is  Twenty,  those  hugely 
hilarious  and  scientifically  sound  stories  of 
ii 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

a  square  peg  in  a  round  hole.  They,  the 
first  two  "Henry"  books,  have  something  the 
flavor  of  Barrie's  Sentimental  Tommy,  some 
thing  the  flair  of  Arnold  Bennett's  Denry  the 
Audacious,  but  they  go  very  much  further  in 
their  shrewd  examination  of  an  exceptional 
boy.  Mr.  Merwin  has  carried  his  abounding 
curiosity  even  beyond  Mr.  Tarkington's 
mirror  of  the  phenomenon  of  adolescence  in 
Penrod  and  Seventeen  and  has  afflicted  his 
hero  with  a  temperament  of  genius  as  well 
as  the  idiosyncratic  character  of  youth.  Now 
a  genius  in  a  book  is  in  this,  very  like  a  genius 
in  life:  it  is  rarely  that  you  find  a  real  one. 
"Henry,"  though  the  expressions  of  his  na 
ture  are  perhaps  somewhat  magnified,  is  es 
sentially  authentic. 

I  should  be  inclined  to  say  offhand  that  he 
is  the  most  deliciously  impressionable  being 
within  the  range  of  my  reading.  And  I  con 
fess  that  I  do  not  recall  in  recent  books  any 
thing  to  my  mind  more  amusing  than  his  first 
journey  to  "li'l  ol'  New  York" — in  his  own 
fancy,  a  thorough  man  of  the  world,  travel 
ing  on  the  most  exclusive  and  expensive  vesti- 
buled  train  in  the  world,  to  see  the  Navy 

12 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

Yard,  and  Central  Park  and  Dead  Man's 
Curve  and  the  Bowery  and  Doctor  Park- 
hurst's  church;  and  bewildered,  thrilled  and 
frightened  by  the  intoxicating  society  of  no 
less  august  person  than  Lillian  Russell,  picked 
up  with  such  miraculous  ease  on  the  train. 
Then  the  awful  crash,  earthquake  and  eclipse, 
and  the  prodigal's  tragic  return  to  Sunbury, 
Illinois. 

Exceptional  characters  add  a  great  deal  to 
the  interest  of  the  book.  And  you  run  into 
any  number  of  queer  coves  in  the  company 
of  Mr.  Merwin;  meet  folk  you  don't  see 
everywhere.  There,  for  just  one  distin 
guished  instance,  is  the  great  Carpentier  him 
self  in  The  Honey  Bee.  And  along  the  China 
coast  one  consorts  in  Mr.  Merwin's  pages 
with  all  sorts  of  strange  victims  of  the 
wanderlust — Doane,  the  fighting,  falling  mis 
sionary;  Dixie  Carmichael  from  the  Barbary 
Coast;  Tex  Connor,  the  international  crook, 
all  to  be  met  in  In  Red  and  Gold.  Also, 
what  is  equally  beguiling,  in  these  pages  you 
find,  with  the  thrill  of  recognition,  a  steady 
going  and  coming  of  persons  that  you  do 
see  every  day,  a  stream  of  old  acquaintances, 

13 


SAMUEL     M  ERW I N 

as  it  were.  Mr.  Merwin's  American  girl  is 
all  about  us.  His  Middle  Western  burghers 
— his  fictional  aunts  and  uncles,  for  example, 
have  very  much  the  flavor  of  your  aunts  and 
uncles  and  of  mine.  "Henry's"  uncle  is  an 
excellent  case  of  uncle.  And  Mr.  Wilberly, 
Miss  Austin's  "uncle  by  marriage,"  is  con 
versationally  quite  lovely  as  "a  practical  busi 
ness  man,"  who  always  breathed  heavily  be 
fore  he  said  anything  jocular,  offhand. 

Then,  it  is  interesting  to  have  your  author 
know  intimately  a  lot  of  things.  Mr.  Mer- 
win  has  surprisingly  intimate  knowledge  of 
a  great  lot  of  things;  things  unrelated  and 
widely  separated.  Anthony,  in  Anthony  the 
Absolute,  is,  most  charmingly,  a  "bug"  on 
the  subject  of  musical  notation.  A  crisis  in 
his  life  is  his  discovery  of  one  of  the  old 
stone  chimes,  the  Pien  Ch'ing,  a  perfect 
specimen  of  the  basic  musical  scale  of  the 
Eastern  world.  A  piece  of  art  that,  Anthony 
the  Absolute,  of  exquisite  humor  and  fra 
grant  aroma,  akin,  in  the  charm  of  its  con 
ception  of  Anthony's  character  and  the  easy 
finish  of  its  style,  to  Mr.  Tarkington's  Beau 
tiful  Lady  and  Eeaucaire.  And  a  rapidly 

14 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

moving  tale  of  dark  passion  and  dramatic 
deeds  as  well. 

Certainly  I  don't  know  where  you  may  go 
in  books  of  to-day  or  any  day,  to  partake 
of  the  excitement  of  prize  fighting  to  the 
degree  that  you  can  when  you  walk  along 
with  Mr.  Merwin.  Miss  Austin's  charmed 
life  in  Shanghai  opens,  almost,  with  a  rous 
ing  impromptu  pugilistic  match.  And  The 
Honey  Bee  is,  among  a  variety  of  other 
things,  an  extensive  education  in  the  whole 
science  of  the  prize  ring,  though  its  under 
lying  theme  is,  indeed,  the  pathos  of  the  "un- 
sexed  female"  who  does  nothing  but  work. 

Hilda  Wilson,  of  that  book,  (to  continue 
a  mention  at  random  of  a  few  of  the  curious 
miscellany  of  things  that  Mr.  Merwin  knows 
about)  in  circumstances  of  a  most  romantic 
nature  pursues  a  very  up-to-date  course  in  the 
care  and  feeding  of  tiny  infants.  A  deeply 
initiated  view  of  the  business  of  modern  ad 
vertising  is  given  the  reader  of  The  Pas 
sionate  Pilgrim  in  the  offices  of  Holmes  Hitt, 
Inc.  A  decidedly  enjoyable  and  illuminating 
experience  it  is,  too.  Mr.  Merwin's  "drunks" 
— the  fool  Mayor  in  The  Passionate  Pil- 

15 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

cfrim,  Crocker,  with  his  murderous  obsession 
in  Anthony  the  Absolute,  are,  like  Mr.  Tark- 
ington's  hard  drinkers,  scientifically  observed 
and  well  understood  cases  of  alcoholism. 
The  escape  of  the  Mayor,  in  an  emotional 
crisis,  from  the  institution  where  he  has  just 
about  completed  a  "cure"  to  the  beginning 
of  another  debauch,  is  a  gorgeous  stroke  of 
a  very  knowing  irony. 

And  so  on  and  so  on  and  so  on.  What 
I  am  getting  at  is  this:  Mr.  Merwin  is  an 
investigator,  a  man  with  an  itch  for  getting 
the  picture  right,  the  sort  of  a  person  who 
will  set  his  alarm-clock  for  three  in  the  morn 
ing,  that  he  may  note  exactly  how  milk 
wagons  sound  going  through  the  streets  at 
that  hour. 

Persons  with  a  fancy  for  marking  "How 
true!"  or  something,  alongside  telling  pas 
sages  in  the  books  they  read  certainly  should 
be  kept  alert  by  Mr.  Merwin's  abundant  and 
frequently  perspicacious  commentary.  Hy 
(otherwise  Henry)  Lowe,  managing  editor 
of  My  Brother's  Keeper,  in  The  Trufflers, 
is  classified  as  a  city  bachelor,  "a  seasoned, 
hardened  city  bachelor."  And  "the  one  pros- 
id 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

pect  that  instantly  and  utterly  terrifies  a 
hardened  city  bachelor  is  that  of  admitting 
that  another  has  a  moral  claim  on  him.  The 
essence  of  bachelordom  is  the  avoidance  of 
personal  responsibility."  Which  observation 
has  a  good  deal  the  ring  of  some  of  Somerset 
Maugham's  worldly  wisdom.  A  very  fair 
little  trifle  of  a  "gift  book,"  I  think,  could 
be  got  up  under  the  label,  The  Wit  and  Wis 
dom  of  Samuel  Merwin.  Though  I  should 
add  that  Mr.  Merwin  does  not  in  any  way 
give  the  effect  of  posing  as  an  oracle.  He 
frequently  adopts  the  diffident  device  of  put 
ting  his  sage  reflections  into  the  mouth  of 
one  of  his  characters,  as  where  he  has  Miss 
Austin  say,  "Wonder  why  it's  never  the 
good  men  that  are  so  terrible  conservative 
about  women,  but  the  bad  ones?"  When  he 
adds,  "After  which  sweeping  and  curiously 
accurate  half  truth,  she  drifted  slowly  into 
dreamland." 

After  his  friendly  separation  from  Henry 
Kitchell  Webster,  Mr.  Merwin  reacted 
sharply  from  the  business  novel  and  wan 
dered  off  into  the  region  of  historic  romance 
with  The  Road  to  Fontenac.  This  was  fol- 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

lowed  by  The  Whip  Hand,  His  Little 
World,  a  charming  romance  of  Lake  Michi 
gan;  The  Merry  Anne;  The  Road  Builders, 
Drugging  a  Nation — an  expose  of  the 
opium  trade — and  then  The  Citadel  which 
was  in  large  part  an  attempted  presentation 
of  American  political  conditions  at  the  time 
of  its  publication,  about  1912.  And  his 
political  corruption  was  very  corrupt  indeed. 
He  has  continued  to  be  an  artist  of  decided 
sociological  purpose.  Way  on  into  The  Pas 
sionate  Pilgrim  the  great  rumpus  is  caused 
by  Henry  Calverly's  simple-minded  inno 
cence  of  "local  business  interests"  and  par 
tisan  politics. 

Throughout  nearly  all  of  his  books  runs 
a  vivid  sense  of  young  women  as  the  game 
of  human  birds  of  prey,  a  revolt  against  "the 
lie  about  life,"  a  satiric  note  concerning  the 
"pretense  of  civilization,"  a  disdain  for 
"newspaper  reputations,"  and  above  all,  a 
keen  perception  that  life  is  usually  very  diffi 
cult.  In  The  Citadel,  Mr.  Merwin  was  early 
in  presenting  a  picture  of  a  personality  newer 
then  than  now,  that  is  in  the  "new  woman," 
as  she  was  then  called,  and  her  pal-like  rela- 
18 


tions  with  mankind.  His  studies  in  modern 
feminine  psychology  have  not  abated.  That 
genius  in  practical  affairs,  young  Mr.  Widdi- 
combe,  gives  it  straight  to  Henry  Calverly, 
"I  tell  you,  Hen,  the  one  time  when  you've 
got  to  be  a  business  man  every  m>*uite,  it's 
when  you're  with  a  girl."  Miss  Betty  Dpane, 
in  Hills  of  Han,  saw  in  marriage  what  ev£xy 
girl  sees — when  life  is  pressing.  And  the 
modern  spirit,  the  "real  battle  cry  of  woman's 
freedom,"  is  the  wheel  that  makes  The  Truf- 
flers  go  round. 

Mr.  Merwin  is  not,  of  course,  a  novelist 
who  puts  a  caption  to  his  "morals,"  but  he 
has  not  abandoned  the  tradition  of  the  great 
days  of  the  English  novel,  that  a  philosophy 
of  life  adorns  a  tale.  And  his  point  of  view 
is  clear,  that  the  soul's  love  is  best. 

Several  years  ago  a  reviewer  who  is  not 
given  to  exuberant  enthusiasms  had  this  to 
say:  "In  all  of  Samuel  Merwin's  novels 
there  is  apparent  a  deep  insight  into  human 
nature,  while  it  is  evident  that  with  every 
year  his  interest  in  the  study  of  characters 
and  their  development  is  steadily  growing 
stronger.  The  cumulative  effect  of  his  work 

19 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

is  beginning  to  make  itself  felt,  and  in  him 
we  are  approaching  that  long  desired  result, 
the  psychological  novelist  who  reveals  to  us 
the  hidden  drama  of  the  mind  in  the  setting 
of  an  absorbing  and  even  an  adventurous 
story." 

A  word  may  very  easily  be  said,  and  by  a 
captious  critic  a  good  many  words  very  likely 
would  be  said,  about  Mr.  Merwin's  being 
an  uneven  writer — most  novelists  are.  He  is 
on  occasion  melodramatic  through  avowed 
principle,  repeatedly  declaring  that  "life  is 
more  primitive  than  fiction."  I  don't  know- 
exactly  what  he  means  by  that  dictum.  There 
are  various  kinds  of  life,  and  there  are  vari 
ous  kinds  of  fiction.  But  I  should  say  that 
Mr.  Merwin's  drama  occasionally  is  more 
"primitive"  as  fiction  than  at  other  times.  In 
this  respect  I  should  cite  The  Citadel  as  per 
haps  the  least  successful  of  his  books.  And 
to  my  mind  the  third  of  the  Henry  books, 
The  Passionate  Pilgrim,  is  a  sad  successor 
to  the  preceding  volumes  of  the  trilogy.  It 
is  somewhat  of  a  puzzle  to  me  how  a  man 
who  had  through  two  volumes  so  rigorously 
eschewed  sentimentality  would  suddenly  ad- 
20 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

mit  it  in  such  measure  in  the  third  book. 
While  some  of  Mr.  Merwin's  fights,  both  in 
and  out  of  the  ring,  are  thundering  affairs, 
putting  the  reader  to  a  tense  strain  as  to  the 
outcome,  others,  the  one  in  the  Muscovy 
Restaurant,  for  instance,  in  The  Trufflers, 
do  not  at  all,  as  Miss  Amy  Lowell  says, 
"ring  my  bell."  Also  now  and  then,  in  the 
midst  of  affairs  which  have  the  ring  of  pene 
trating  veracity,  one  comes  upon  a  matter 
which  it  is  too  much  of  a  wrench  to  accept 
as  a  probability.  I  do  not  refer  to  hair- 
raising  happenings.  It  is,  for  example,  far 
easier  to  accept  as  in  artistic  truth  the  wildest 
adventure  of  Miss  Austin,  or  in  Hills  of  Han 
or  In  Red  and  Gold,  than  it  is  to  believe  that 
Henry  Calverly  could  have  written  the  great 
biography  of  the  Pacific  Railroad  king. 

One  does  not,  I  should  say,  perceive  an 
even  advance  in  Mr.  Merwin's  style  through 
one  book  after  another.  That  is  because  his 
style  is  a  changing  medium,  adapted  to  the 
type  of  tale  in  hand.  In  some  books  it  is 
quick  and  sparkling,  in  others  moving  with 
a  steadier  current.  But  his  ease  and  power 
21 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

to-day  are  far,  far  away  from  the  early  awk 
wardness  of  The  Citadel. 

Merwin  once  said:  "My  professional  goal 
is  to  learn  as  much  as  possible  about  the 
business  of  writing."  That's  a  key  to  the 
man's  character.  He  is  always  learning;  he 
always  will  learn.  He  will  never  arrive  be 
cause  he  will  never  stop  going,  or  growing. 

And  while  I  am  chatting  about  him,  I'd 
better  say  that  nothing  comes  his  way  that 
doesn't  challenge  his  consideration.  Life  first 
and  then  the  technique  to  transcribe  it.  Fan 
nie  Hurst  said  of  him  not  long  ago:  "Mr. 
Merwin  has  the  faculty  of  folding  and  stir 
ring  into  his  fiction  the  subtile  flavor  of  ac 
tuality,"  which  may  justify  me  in  observing 
that  even  in  his  moments  of  high  romance 
he  does  not  fear  to  cut  into  the  solid  sub 
stance  of  real  life. 

Who's  Who  tells  me  it  was  at  Evanston, 
Illinois,  in  the  year  1874  that  Samuel  Mer 
win  began  his  interesting  career.  He  was  a 
shy  youngster,  observing,  reticent,  thought 
ful;  developing  early  a  fondness  for  music, 
a  high  forehead  and  a  passion  for  spectacles. 
The  niceties  of  dress  appealed  to  him;  pos- 

22 


sibly  because  he  saw  the  impression  clothes 
made  on  the  Evanston  flappers,  for  Samuel 
soon  realized  that  if  he  was  one  day  to  write 
The  Passionate  Pilgrim  he  could  not  hold 
himself  aloof  from  the  dominant  sex.  And 
he  didn't.  He  was  born  into  the  social  life 
of  Chicago's  famous  suburb  and  he  made  the 
most  of  his  inheritance.  Men  and  women, 
regardless  of  age  or  occupation,  stirred  his 
young  imagination  and  aroused  his  early 
spring  emotions.  They  became  his  chief  in 
terest  in  life  and  have  continued  to  hold  his 
acquisitive  attention  unabated. 

But  in  spite  of  his  shyness  and  his  glasses 
he  was  every  inch  a  boy,  and  so  it  came  about 
that  he  found,  a  few  blocks  down  the  shady 
street  on  which  he  lived,  another  lad  whose 
mind  ran  along  with  his,  who  saw  the  Evans- 
ton  world  through  the  same  glasses,  (though 
he  didn't  wear  them),  who  was  going  to  the 
same  school  and  reading  the  same  inflamma 
tory  literature.  This  lad  was  Henry  Kitchell 
Webster. 

When  the  Northwestern  University  turned 
these  boys  out  to  sink  or  swim  they  were 
bound  together  by  a  common  ambition  which 

23 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

very  shortly  disclosed  itself  to  the  world  in 
The  Short-Line  War  and  Calumet  K.  The 
success  of  these  initial  excursions  into  the 
fastness  of  fiction  settled  the  future  for  both 
these,  by  this  time,  young  men,  and  though 
they  dissolved  the  literary  partnership,  each 
to  fight  his  own  fight  in  his  own  way,  they 
held  firmly  to  their  boyhood  friendship,  to 
their  mutual  admiration.  The  disintegrating 
years  have  only  worked  to  strengthen  these 
binding  ties. 

Speaking  of  his  beginnings,  Merwin  has 
said:  "I  didn't  have  a  cent  when  I  started 
out  to  write.  I  had  taken  special  courses  at 
Northwestern  and  was  doing  some  work  for 
the  newspapers.  Then  I  wrote  several  comic 
operas  and  fooled  around  with  that  game 
to  some  extent  with  my  'Tom  Brown'  friend, 
Henry  Kitchell  Webster,  staging  plays  in 
which  I  always  took  part. 

"When  I  was  twenty,  one  of  the  operettas 
attracted  the  attention  of  a  Chicago  paper 
and  for  a  time  I  thought  seriously  of  becom 
ing  a  comic  opera  comedian.  However,  I 
stuck  to  writing.  This  successful  musical  piece 
was  called  The  Medicine  Man.  Perhaps 
24 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

you  will  remember  it  was  produced  back  in 
1897? 

"My  friendship  with  Henry  Kitchell  Web 
ster  has  been  a  most  amazing  one.  As  boys 
we  grew  up  together.  During  the  short 
time  we  were  in  high  school  we  worked  on 
the  school  paper,  and  wrote  many  foolish  little 
skits  together.  I  turned  out  a  few  stories 
and  sent  them  to  the  Youth's  Companion. 
The  first  that  brought  me  any  money  was 
sold  to  the  Irving  Bacheller  Syndicate  for 
fifteen  glorious  dollars.  I  had  almost  de 
cided  to  accept  a  job  with  a  big  harvester 
company,  go  into  business  for  all  time  and 
let  literature  struggle  along  as  best  it  could, 
when  The  Youth's  Companion  bought  one 
of  my  stories  and  sent  me  a  check  for  thirty- 
five  dollars.  That  settled  me  for  good,  or 
bad,  in  the  writing  game.  The  harvester 
company  lost  what  would  have  been  a  thor 
oughly  inefficient  clerk. 

"Finally  I  got  enough  money  to  take  me  to 
New  York,  and  while  I  was  there  I  tore 
off  a  lot  of  stuff  and  sold  it  to  McClure's, 
The  Youth's  Companion  and  other  publica 
tions.  In  the  meantime,  Webster,  who  had 

25  » 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

been  teaching  in  New  York  State,  came  back 
to  Evanston,  and,  as  of  old,  we  joined  forces 
and  wrote  the  novel,  The  Short  Line  W  ar. 
It  was  the  first  of  the  so-called  business  ro 
mances.  Then  we  did  Calumet  K  which  ap 
peared  in  The  Saturday  Evening  Post. 

"Strange  parallel,  Webster's  life  and  mine. 
There  is  less  than  a  year's  difference  in  our 
ages.  While  both  very  young,  we  inaugu 
rated  one  of  those  until-death-do-us-part 
friendships.  We  married  college  room 
mates,  and  our  children  came  within  a  year 
of  each  other. 

"In  1901,  Mrs.  Merwin  and  I  spent  a  year 
in  France.  At  the  end  of  our  visit,  the 
Websters  came  over  and  took  the  house  we 
had  occupied.  There  have  been  long  periods 
when  we  haven't  seen  each  other,  yet  our 
lives  ran  along  together  surprisingly  alike. 
We  broke  out  about  the  same  time,  he 
in  The  Saturday  Evening  Post  and  I  in 
McClure's. 

"Then   each   of  us   did   a   novel,    neither 

knowing  what  the  other  was  doing.    Another 

time  he  wrote  a  story  called  The  Butterfly 

and  I  wrote  one  called  Anthony  the  Absolute, 

26 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

and  when  the  stories  were  printed  they  were 
strangely  similar.  His  was  told  by  a  pro 
fessor,  and  mine  by  a  scientist;  mine  was 
about  a  young  woman  singer  and  his  about 
a  dancer. 

"His  novel,  The  Real  Adventure  and  mine, 
The  Honey  Bee,  were  so  completely  opposite 
that  two  men  might  have  been  writing  the 
same  story — one  pro  and  the  other  con. 

"The  two  youngsters  back  there  in  Evans- 
ton  swapping  ideas,  years  ago,  certainly 
showed  in  our  later  efforts." 

Webster's  inclination  to  "stay  put"  devel 
oped,  and  has  held  him  firmly  and  happily 
to  his  native  soil.  Merwin's  tendency  to  in- 
quisitiveness  grew  beyond  control;  he  broke 
camp  and  went  out  to  meet  experience  half 
way.  New  York  swallowed  him;  Success 
(the  magazine)  broke  him;  hard  necessity 
drove  him!  He  fled  to  China,  sent  back  a 
book  on  the  opium  trade,  came  home  by  way 
of  Paris,  and  after  several  localizing  experi 
ments,  he  found  his  complement — his  perfect 
state,  in  Concord,  Mass. 


IN    RED   AND   GOLD 

MR.  MERWIN  can  always  be  counted  on 
to  give  us  an  interesting  story.  No 
listener  nods  in  the  chimney  corner  when 
this  famous  teller  of  tales  lights  his  pipe  and  sets 
out  on  a  "Once  upon  a  time"  voyage.  This  reputa 
tion  is  more  than  sustained  by  his  latest  romance — 
In  Red  and  Gold.  Indeed  it  is  brilliantly  height 
ened,  for  the  moment  you  set  foot  on  the  Yen  Hsin, 
which  you  do  on  page  one,  and  begin  the  thrilling 
and  picturesque  journey  up  the  great  Yangtze  River 
to  Hankow,  from  that  moment  you  are  wholly  ab 
sorbed  in  your  fellow  passengers,  and  deeply  en 
grossed  in  the  drama  they  enact.  You  are  given  a 
place  at  the  Captain's  table  where  you  meet  two 
school  teachers  from  the  States;  a  Manchu  Princess, 
dressed  in  Fifth  Avenue  clothes  and  carrying  home 
a  sheepskin  from  a  Massachusetts  college ;  an  inter 
national  crook,  who  claims  the  world  for  his  hunt 
ing-ground  ;  a  millionaire  seeking  rest  and  invest 
ment  ;  his  son,  weak  and  bad  until  strength  and 
goodness  are  demanded  of  him;  a  girl  from  the 
Barbary  Coast,  who  neither  looks  it  nor  admits  it ; 
the  first  mate,  whom  you  met  in  Hills  of  Han  but 
28 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

wearing  a  different  cut  of  clothes;  and  the  old 
Viceroy  who,  under  sentence  of  death,  is  on  his 
way  to  his  ancestral  home  in  order  that  he  may 
finish  his  life  in  proper  dignity — as  fine  and  noble 
a  figure  as  you  will  meet  in  life  or  in  literature. 

With  this  company  of  conflicting  characters  and 
motives;  in  this  intimate  setting,  on  the  greatest 
of  rivers,  rich  in  memories  of  the  endless  human 
drama;  with  a  revolution  brewing,  and  the  plans 
forming  for  a  great  jewel  robbery,  what  chance  is 
there  for  a  drab  or  a  dull  moment? 

It  may  be  said  by  some  that  Mr.  Merwin  has 
shown  China  at  her  best  and  America  at  her  worst ; 
but  surely  we  are  big  enough  to  be  told  our  faults, 
while  nothing  could  be  more  opportune  in  a  political 
way  than  the  lights  he  gives  us  on  China's  virtues, 
upon  her  proffered  gifts  to  Western  civilization,  on 
her  art,  her  poetry,  her  patience,  her  philosophy. 
That  Mr.  Merwin's  knowledge  is  intensive,  his 
sympathy  and  admiration  great,  no  one  can  deny. 
He  doubtless  believes  that  "one  of  the  worthiest 
tasks  left  in  the  world  is  to  explain  the  East  to  the 
West."  Certainly  with  seriousness  and  sincerity  he 
does  his  bit  in  this  most  engaging  of  all  his 
romances. 


THE    HONEY   BEE 

"The  author  has  given  to  the  study  of  the  emo 
tional  life  of  a  modern  business  woman  most  careful 
workmanship.  The  story  is  a  singularly  complete 
one.  There  are  no  loose  ends  to  this  narrative.  Every 
development  of  plot  is  thoughtfully  worked  out, 
every  event  occurs  naturally,  yet  all  contribute  to 
a  completely  rounded,  intense  and  tragic  story. 
Every  sentence  has  its  relation  to  the  tale  as  a  whole. 
Characters  are  wonderfully  consistent  and  glowing 
with  personality.  Even  those  individuals  who  flit 
out  again  are  vivid  and  arresting.  Above  all,  it  is 
not  a  hysterical  story.  The  modern  business  woman 
is  not  hysterical.  She  rises  above  her  sisters  of 
whatever  class  in  poise.  She  may  suffer,  she  may 
even  collapse,  but  she  does  not  weep  nor  rend  the 
air  with  lamentations.  Yet  she  is  a  woman  all  right, 
every  inch  of  her.  Mr.  Merwin  has  been  just  to 
the  type." — Baltimore  Sun. 

"A  decidedly  unusual  novel  it  is,  and  one  of 
obviously  feministic  import.  The  humanizing  of 
an  American  business  woman  under  unconventional 
and  bohemian  circumstances  is  the  theme,  and  the 

30 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

author  deserves  credit  for  carrying  his  story  to  its 
logical  and  consistent  conclusion  instead  of  begging 
the  question  by  weakingly  marrying  his  heroine  to 
some  eligible  man  as  the  customery  sop  to  those 
sentimental  souls  who  sternly  demand  the  conven 
tional  romance." — Philadelphia  Press. 

"While  the  Honey  Bee  is  a  problem  story,  what 
is  more  important,  it  is  a  deeply  human  story  of 
a  dramatic  year  in  a  woman's  life.  For  the  most 
part,  Paris  is  the  scene  of  action,  with  a  manly 
pugilist  and  minor  singers  and  dancers  of  the  halls 
furnishing  Hilda  distraction  for  a  while.  From 
the  first  Mr.  Merwin  has  shown  marked  facility. 
He  has  supple  technique  now,  and  with  the  under 
standing  of  humanity  that  makes  his  characters  be 
lievable  things.  The  Honey  Bee  is  the  best  thing 
he  has  done." — Boston  Herald. 

"It  is  an  interesting,  well-written  story,  full  of 
amazing  hints  of  the  workings  of  a  woman's  mind 
and  the  aspirations  of  her  soul.  It  may  be  the 
reflex  of  an  actual  woman's  life,  up  to  a  certain 
stage,  but  it  is  so  embellished  with  Mr.  Merwin 's 
imagination  that  it  may  be  accepted  as  wholly  a 
work  of  fiction,  behind  which  is  the  author's  purpose 
to  show  by  what  a  narrow  wall  woman's  mortality 
is  after  all  immured." — Philadelphia  Record. 

"Once  in  a  while  there  comes  a  novel  which  is 
so  distinctive  that  it  rises  far  above  the  common 

31 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

level  even  of  good  fiction  and  assumes  a  permanent 
place  in  current  literature.  Such  a  novel  is  The 
Honey  Bee,  by  Samuel  Merwin,  whose  Anthony  the 
Absolute,  was  a  surprise  to  those  who  had  followed 
his  successful  career.  It  is  a  study  in  feminine 
psychology,  which  is  so  just  and  so  true  that  one 
wonders  how  a  man  could  have  written  it.  ... 

"The  great  charm  and  the  power  of  this  book 
is  in  its  excellent  characterization  and  especially  of 
the  heroine.  The  book  reads  like  the  autobiography 
of  a  human  soul  that  has  experienced  much,  but  has 
not  yet  found  itself.  This  is  the  best  novel  of  the 
spring  and  one  of  the  best  of  recent  times." — 
Philadelphia  Inquirer. 

"A  mark  of  high  credit  must  be  given  for  the 
quality  of  The  Honey  Bee  and  the  admirable  man 
ner  of  its  telling." — New  York  World. 

"The  Honey  Bee  is  richly  suggestive  of  searching 
thought — withal  it  is  a  most  excellent,  a  most  read 
able  novel,  admirably  well  constructed  and  well 
written." — New  York  Tribune. 

"The  description  of  the  prize  fight  between 
Moran  and  the  redoubtable  Carpentier,  the  en 
thusiasm  of  the  vulgar  Mrs.  Huybers,  wife  of 
Moran's  manager,  the  bewildering  emotions  at  con 
flict  within  Hilda  as  she  watches,  makes  one  of  the 
most  interesting  passages  in  current  fiction." — Los 
Angeles  Sunday  Times. 

32 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

"The  book  is  a  serious  contribution  to  the  dis 
cussion  of  the  complex  question  of  woman's  new 
status.  It  is  richly  suggestive  of  searching  thought, 
but  withal  it  is  from  first  to  last  an  excellent,  a 
most  readable  novel,  admirably  well  constructed  and 
well  written.  Incidentally  it  may  be  mentioned  to 
amateurs  that  Mr.  Merwin's  description  of  the  great 
championship  prizefight  between  Carpentier  and 
Blink  Moran  is  worth  their  while." — New  York 
Tribune. 

"The  social  problem  presented  by  the  woman  in 
business  is  the  main  theme  of  Samuel  Merwin's 
The  Honey  Bee  a  story  of  real  distinction,  owing 
to  its  charm  of  style,  novel  atmosphere  and  presenta 
tion  of  a  situation  that  must  be  ever-present  in  the 
business  world  since  women  have  invaded  that  world 
in  such  numbers  and  with  so  much  success.  Mr. 
Merwin's  book  is  decidedly  novel  and  unusual.  His 
pictures  of  the  problem  of  woman  in  business  are 
wide  enough  to  cover  their  moral  and  ethical  aspects 
with  a  solution  that  may  be  said  to  be  inevitable, 
granting  the  kind  of  woman  Hilda  is.  His  sketches 
of  life  in  Paris  are  as  stimulating  as  the  very  air 
of  the  city  of  'Light  itself;  while  his  portrait  of 
Blink  Moran — and  more  especially  the  description 
of  that  boxer's  fight  with  Carpentier — is  really  a 
superb  piece  of  work.  And  with  these  excellences 
there  is  the  charm  of  his  English,  which  makes  one 

33 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

feel  that  another  one  of  our  writers  has  fallen  under 
the  spell  of  the  great  beauty  of  French  prose  and 
has  reproduced  in  English  not  a  little  of  the  supreme 
magic  of  its  texture.  This  is,  decidedly,  one  of  the 
finest  novels  of  the  last  decade." — New  York  Press. 


THE   TRUFFLERS 

"As  a  careful  appraisal  of  the  modern  girl  it  pos 
sesses  exceptional  value." — Christian  World,  Cleve 
land. 

"The  Trufflers,  a  story  by  Samuel  Merwin,  is  a 
brilliant  author's  most  brilliant  book.  Into  this 
anarchic  society  of  the  Village,  Mr.  Merwin  boldly 
plunges  his  readers,  and  here  we  see  how  plays  are 
made,  how  bachelor  girls  live,  how  a  charming 
emancipated  heroine  can  unblushingly  receive  an 
invitation  to  elope  into  an  unwedded  union,  in 
fact  how  life  is  lived  at  its  freest  by  some  who 
pose,  many  who  merely  talk,  and  a  few  who  put 
their  anarchic  creed  into  their  deed.  Mr.  Merwin 
has  skilfully  given  the  argument  for  both  self- 
abnegation  and  liberty,  and  has  not  committed  a 
single  dull  sentence  in  the  course  of  his  demonstra 
tion." — Vogue,  New  York. 

"I  will  not  be  responsible  for  recommending  this 
novel  to  a  Methodist  audience,  but  I  will  confess 
that  I  enjoyed  it  and  found  in  it  several  lessons 
worthwhile." — Methodist  Protestant,  Baltimore. 

"One  of  the  best  and  most  enjoyable  novels  of  the 

35 


season,  and  you  will  want  to  read  to  the  very  last 
page." — Citizen,  Brooklyn. 

"The  author  of  that  masterful  piece  of  writing, 
The  Honey  Bee,  again  strikes  the  note  of  the  un 
usual,  and  coins  a  word  that  we'll  all  be  using 
before  we  know  it." — Pittsburg  Leader. 

"This  book  isn't  a  mere  story.  It  is  a  great  novel, 
worthy  of  Balzac,  because  it  teaches  without  pro 
fessing  to  do  so,  it  illuminates  life  without  priggish- 
ness  or  preaching.  It  tells  some  fundamental  les 
sons  in  ways  that  only  truth  can  present.  It  reveals 
to  us  that  the  underlying  principles  of  society  are 
correct  and  that  to  fight  against  conventions  as  if 
they  were  most  important  is  absurd.  In  the  end 
every  human  being  goes  to  his  own  place  according 
to  heredity,  environment,  education,  will  power  and 
moral  principle.  It  is  an  illuminating  story  of  life 
written  with  unusual  power." — Inquirer,  Philadel 
phia. 

"The  tall,  thin  young  man  meets  at  a  street  cross 
ing  a  boyishly  slender,  graceful,  short-haired,  green- 
eyed  girl.  They  speak.  So  much  for  the  beginning 
of  Samuel  Merwin's  The  Trufflers.  The  reader 
is  prepared  for  the  conventional  novel,  his  mind 
leaps  obstacles  and  envisages  the  ending.  And  in 
so  doing  he  makes  a  mistake.  For  Mr.  Merwin 
is  not  a  conventional  novelist.  If  he  is  not  a  realist, 

36 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

he  is  at  least  an  observer  at  close  range  of  certain 
aspects  of  life ;  he  understands  how  certain  types 
react  and  especially  does  he  know  how  to  portray 
an  impressionable  young  egoist  with  a  touch  of 
genius." — Indianapolis  News. 

"Mr.  Merwin  has  written  an  interesting  novel. 
Praise  is  due  him.  He  is  an  advocate  of  real  life 
and  writes  about  it  with  an  originality  that  is 
unique,  withal  carrying  through  the  book  a  thorough 
ness  that  admits  of  no  erotic  forms  of  situation.  He 
has  proved  in  The  Trufflers  that  the  exceptions  of 
the  human  species  (which  are  his  characters)  have 
surface  values  only  and  that  underneath  the  super 
ficial  aspects  of  character  we  are  all  alike." — Pitts 
burgh  Sun. 

"The  author  writes  with  unusual  directness;  he 
gives  the  arguments  for  and  against  the  modern  in 
dependence  of  woman;  he  describes  many  familiar 
and  many  not  so  well  known  bits  of  New  York; 
he  props  up  the  Greenwich  Village  legend ;  he  paints 
some  picturesque  figures,  male  and  female ;  above 
all  he  jeers  amusingly  at  many  things,  and  presents 
us  with  a  girl  that  can  be  liked  through  all  her 
blunderings  and  a  lover  that  is  wholly  satisfactory. 
It  is  a  graphic  picture." — New  York  Sun. 

"Mr.  Merwin's  picture  of  his  region  and  his  people 
is  impressive.  He  treats  of  certain  strong  tendencies 

37 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

in  urban  life  that  look  attractive,  but  which  in  prac 
tice  are  of  life's  direst  dregs.  The  warning  is  not 
untimely.  But  the  lesson  is  not  alone  for  the 
feminine  seekers  of  liberty.  There  are  many  mascu 
line  'trufflers,'  and  the  irony  of  the  story  lies  in 
the  revelation  that  the  chief  'reformer'  of  the  idle 
women  of  the  village,  the  loudest  declaimer  against 
the  'truffler'  is  himself  the  greatest  'truffler'  of  them 
all."— Philadelphia  Record. 

"The  quality  that  gives  The  Trufflers  its  deep 
interest  and  vitality  as  a  story  is  its  fine  fairness, 
its  admirable  balance.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about 
the  author's  personal  sentiments  and  views,  but  he 
never  once  distorts  his  drama  of  human  relationship 
arbitrarily  to  strengthen  his  own  viewpoint.  But 
the  reality  of  his  Sue  Wilde,  his  Zann,  his  'Worm,' 
his  Hy  Love  and  of  Peter  Eric  Mann — above  all 
of  the  last  named — will  be  recognized  instantly  by 
all  who  have  encountered  their  prototypes  in  daily 
life."— Philadelphia  Press. 

"The  Trufflers  has  plenty  of  incident,  some  excit 
ing  moments,  and  more  than  a  few  touches  of  satire, 
but  it  is  primarily  as  the  study  of  the  modern  girl 
that  it  commands  attention.  It  is  in  many  ways  a 
much  better  novel  than  The  Honey  Bee,  clearer  in 
thought,  less  drawn  out,  more  convincing.  With 
The  Charmed  Life  of  Miss  dustin,  Mr.  Merwin 

38 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

proved  himself  possessed  of  an  unusual  amount  of 
sympathy  and  insight  regarding  that  complicated 
person  we  call  the  modern  girl.  These  qualities  of 
his  have  grown  and  developed,  with  the  result  that 
in  The  Trufflers,  we  have  a  thoroughly  worth-while 
book,  sane,  unprejudiced,  spiced  with  humor,  holding 
one's  interest  from  the  first  page  to  the  last — a  novel 
which  can  not  only  be  read,  but  even  re-read  with 
pleasure  and  profit." — New  York  Times, 

"In  Sue  Wilde,  the  heroine  of  The  Trufflers,  Mr. 
Merwin  has  presented  with  sympathy  and  with 
understanding  a  fine  type  of  the  modern  girl  who 
revolts  and  seeks  freedom,  welcomes  with  young, 
whole-hearted  enthusiasm  doctrines  which  seem  to 
be  embodied  truth,  makes  of  them  a  religion — and 
presently  dicovers  that  there  is  often  a  gulf  between 
fact  and  theory,  that  there  is  sometimes  a  'lot  of 
bunk  in  this  freedom  theory,'  that  the  majority  of 
the  really  admirable  men  and  women  'aren't  wor 
ried  about  their  liberty,'  while  with  the  others  it 
is  very  often  'all  words.'  Sue  has  a  conscience ; 
she  has  been  honest  in  her  beliefs,  and  when  she 
finds  out  that  for  her  at  least  it  is  impossible  for 
her  to  put  into  practice  'the  kind  of  freedom'  she 
has  been  talking  about,  she  makes  a  sincere  and 
determined  effort  to  find  herself.  In  this  attempt 
she  turns  to  the  other  extreme,  only  to  realize  that 
suppression  and  denial  have  their  dangers,  too,  that 

39 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

the  new  spirit  of  freedom  has  a  contribution  to  make 
quite  as  valuable  as  the  Puritan  tradition.  She  is 
both  a  type  and  an  individual,  a  vivid,  ardent,  plucky 
creature,  enthusiastic,  spirited,  honest  with  that 
most  difficult  kind  of  honesty — the  refusal  to  de 
ceive  one's  self." — New  York  Times. 


TEMPERAMENTAL    HENRY 

"If  Samuel  Merwin's  new  novel,  Temperamental 
Henry,  did  nothing  more  than  shock  us  out  of  our 
blind  and  middle-aged  complacency  it  would  justify 
its  existence.  But  it  does  this  and  a  good  deal  more 
besides,  for  it  introduces  us  to  half  a  dozen  young 
people  who  prove  so  unconsciously  entertaining  and 
so  tragically  amusing  that  we  forget  to  pay  our 
income  tax.  And  these  really  are  young  people. 
Henry  is  only  eighteen,  and  Clem  and  Ernestine 
and  Martha  and  the  rest  are  younger.  Henry  isn't 
the  twenty-seven-year-old  hero  who  has  drained  the 
cup  of  life  and  speaks  in  clever  cynicisms;  nor  the 
typical  bad  boy  of  fiction  who  melts  limburger  cheese 
on  the  schoolroom  stove.  Henry  is  an  individual 
with  a  distinct  personality  and  Mr.  Merwin  has 
analyzed  him  with  all  the  loving  care  that  he  might 
have  given  to  the  most  complex  man  of  the  world. 
As  a  result  Henry  lives  for  us  and  we  live  for  him. 
We  know  him  and  sympathize  with  him,  love  him 
and  laugh  at  him,  and  recall  the  boy  in  our  'crowd' 
who  played  the  guitar  and  who  didn't  seem  to  get 
on,  except  with  the  girls.  But  Henry  isn't  all  the 
story,  by  a  good  deal." — New  Haven  Saturday 
Chronicle. 

41 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

"A  large  part  of  the  fun  of  the  book  lies  in  the 
serious  and  semi-serious  love  affairs  which  dot 
Henry's  summer.  Mr.  Merwin  seems  to  have  cap 
tured  the  very  spirit  of  youth  itself  in  the  happy 
go-lucky  way  in  which  Henry  finds  himself  in  love 
affair  after  love  affair,  while  at  heart  he  cherishes 
a  dim  understanding  that  underneath  the  momentary 
feeling  he  does  not  want  these  to  be  serious  happen 
ings,  because  he  wants  to  be  free  a  while  longer. 
And  after  all  there  is  more  than  a  little  seriousness 
under  the  comedy,  and  Mr.  Merwin  has  a  serious 
intention  in  portraying  Henry's  inability  to  cope 
with  what  seems  on  the  surface  a  harmless  habit. 
He  does  not  preach,  but  we  can  imagine  him  sug 
gesting  that  all  the  habits  which  injure  the  will 
are  not  those  commonly  preached  against.  In  fact 
it  is  these  unheroic  qualities  of  Henry  which  make 
him  seem  so  real  and  which  endear  him  to  the 
reader.  The  ability  to  bestow  so  complete  a  sense 
of  reality  upon  a  character  must  be  acknowledged 
as  fine  art." — Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

"This  time  Mr.  Merwin  has  written  his  most 
realistic  novel  of  character.  It  is  quite  an  achieve 
ment  this,  creating  a  hero  who  is  a  perfect  fool  and 
yet  making  him  human  and  interesting.  Curiosity 
makes  you  read  this  novel  to  the  very  last  chapter." 
— Portland  Oregonian. 

"Henry  is  not  a  mere  figment  of  the  imagination. 
42 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

Mr.  Merwin  makes  him  a  decided  reality  even  in 
moments  of  his  wildest  eccentricities.  One  does 
not  grow  impatient  with  him,  even  when  he  flits 
from  one  passion  to  another  and  is  guilty  of  the 
most  irresponsible  acts.  The  author  keeps  before  the 
reader  that  Henry  has  'temperament,'  and  has 
never  learned  habits  of  responsibility  or  ideas  of 
conventional  conduct.  This  is  not  an  unmixed  evil, 
for  Henry  is  always  delightfully  naive,  even  when 
most  egotistical.  Understanding  his  simplicity,  good 
habits  and  good  intentions,  plus  his  'temperament,' 
whatever  the  psychological  explanation  of  that 
phenomenon  may  be,  one  readily  accepts  Henry  as  an 
actual  personality  whose  extremes  of  moods  and  im 
pulsive  adventures  furnish  a  most  entertaining  tale." 
— Springfield  Republican. 

,  "Samuel  Merwin  always  writes  an  entertaining 
story.  It  makes  little  difference  what  is  his  theme 
or  his  scenario,  because  interest  inheres  almost  en 
tirely  in  his  characters.  He  is  a  profound  psycholo 
gist,  and  as  people  are  the  most  interesting  things 
in  the  world,  he  always  scores  a  success.  The  great 
value  of  this  book  is  that  it  reveals  to  every  man 
the  manner  of  boy  that  he  was  himself.  It  is  an 
amazingly  fine  analysis  of  adolescence.  In  many 
respects  this  may  be  deemed  Mr.  Merwin's  best 
piece  of  work." — Philadelphia  Enquirer. 

"Mr.  Merwin  has  done  a  surpassingly  able  thing. 

43 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

Henry  is  a  rare  creation,  and  although  he  is  the 
tour  de  force  of  the  volume,  its  general  truth  to 
provincial  American  society  is  delicious,  while 
Henry's  sweethearts  are  differentiated  with  rare 
discrimination."—  Vogue. 

"The  author  knows  how  to  enter  sympathetically 
into  all  the  emotional  experiences  of  youth  and  to 
interpret  them  for  those  who  have  long  since  for 
gotten  that  they  too  were  once  young.  This  story 
is  one  with  the  dew  still  on  the  grass  and  the  bloom 
on  the  fruit,  before  contact  with  this  rough  old 
workaday  world  has  brushed  them  off.  It  is  full 
of  youth's  confidence  and  optimism,  alert  with  great 
expectations  and  the  keenness  of  an  unsated  appetite, 
and  bubbling  over  with  the  sheer  joy  of  living.  It 
will  bring  back  vividly  to  you  your  own  days  when 
life  was  in  its  springtime  and  the  birds  were  singing 
in  all  the  trees.  It  will  do  you  a  world  of  good 
to  read  it." — Cleveland  Christian  World. 

"Mr.  Merwin  has  caught  the  psychology  of  18 
with  subtlety  and  sympathy  and  he  makes  luminous 
the  puzzling  mental  processes  by  which  youth 
regulates  its  sprightly  journey  to  the  age  when  life 
is  not  less  serious,  but  is  better  understood.  Henry 
is  a  boy  who  will  give  readers  many  happy  moments ; 
and  the  girls  who  come  within  his  perview  will  be 
found  equally  entertaining." — Philadelphia  Record. 

"Mr.   Merwin  has  painted  with  utmost  fidelity 

44 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

and  not  a  little  humor  the  raw,  quick  soul  of  seven 
teen.  It  is  really  and  truly  a  classic.  Willie  Baxter 
amused  hugely.  Henry  tickles  a  little  more  subtly 
— and  it  hurts." — Chicago  News. 

"Here  is  a  delightful  story  of  a  healthy  young 
fellow  who  is  just  beginning  to  find  himself  and 
consequently  learns  that  few  people  are  able  to  sym 
pathize  with  him — except  the  girls.  Yet  there  is 
such  an  intensely  human  tenderness  in  the  presenta 
tion  of  the  boy's  loves  and  sorrows  that  no  one  can 
fail  to  enjoy  the  recital  of  his  experiences.  It  is 
really  a  refreshing  book." — San  Francisco  Call. 

"Mr.  Merwin  is  very  respectful  to  the  youth  em 
bodied  in  Henry  if  not  always  to  Henry  himself — 
respectful,  sympathetic,  understanding,  and  he  has 
endeavored,  and  perhaps  succeeded,  as  far  as  the 
thing  is  possible — to  reduce  to  some  sort  of  under 
standable  order  the  complicated  surges  of  emotion 
and  the  vague,  tangled  helter-skelter  of  motives  that 
impel  adolescence  to  action.  The  story  ought  to  be 
particularly  interesting  to  parents  with  children  in 
their  teens.  They  will  probably  find  out  from  it 
many  things  they  wrould  never  have  guessed  and  will 
have  made  clear  to  their  understanding  other  things 
that  have  been  hopelessly  mystifying  puzzles." — 
Neiv  York  Times. 

"In  this  irresistibly  delightful  story  of  Henry  Cal- 
verly,  Mr.  Merwin  has  entered  into  the  very  heart 

45 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

of  hearts  of  temperamental  adolescence.  There  is 
not  a  moment  in  which  Henry  is  not  100  per  cent 
alive  and  true  to  life.  We  laugh  at  him  and  weep 
over  him ;  we  blame  him  and  we  praise  him ;  but 
we  always  sympathize  with  him  and  feel  ourselves 
bound  by  the  irresistible  spell  of  youth.  His  ex 
travagances  never  go  'beyond  the  limit';  he  is  a 
character,  not  a  caricature.  Of  course  he  makes  a 
fool  of  himself,  as  does  every  young  man ;  but  he 
does  so  in  a  decent  fashion,  clean  and  self-respecting. 
It  is  a  most  engaging  picture  that  Mr.  Merwin 
draws,  and  we  bespeak  for  it  a  place  on  the  line  in 
the  gallery  of  real  life." — New  York  Tribune. 

"Henry  is  18,  so  if  you  are  not  too  old  to  care 
any  longer  for  the  young  people  about  you  and 
their  frivolities,  why  just  beg,  borrow  or  steal  a 
copy  of  this  book,  and  if  you  have  not  on  a  broad 
grin  before  the  end  of  the  first  episode,  you  are 
indeed  a  grouch  and  there  is  no  hope." — Philadel 
phia  Sunday  Despatch. 


HENRY   IS   TWENTY 

"Mr.  Merwin  has  the  faculty  of  presenting  his 
characters  in  a  most  life-like  manner.  The  reader 
lives  with  them  and  almost  feels  that  he  knows 
their  innermost  thoughts." — Brooklyn  Standard 
Union. 

"There  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  Mr.  Merwin 
has  written  in  this  book  a  story  which  has  more 
appeal  to  the  majority  of  readers  than  had  Tem 
peramental  Henry.  There  is  nothing  which  is  so 
essentially  pleasing  as  the  story  of  sudden  success — 
the  old  instinct  for  the  magic  wand  which  turns  the 
everyday  Henry  of  yesterday  into  the  desirable  per 
son  of  today,  the  sought-after  man  of  tomorrow. 
This  is  the  story  of  Henry  Is  Twenty.  It  has  the 
thrilling  magic  of  success  in  it.  It  is  all  the  more 
wonderful  because  we  have  read  the  earlier  book, 
seen  Henry  when  he  was  not  wonderful,  but  only 
a  boy  with  a  talent  for  doing  the  wrong  thing  at 
the  wrong  moment." — Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

"A  study  of  the  struggles,  spiritual  and  physical 
— mainly  spiritual — of  a  boy  of  2O,  is  made  with 
extraordinary  insight  and  fidelity  and  much  humor 
by  Samuel  Merwin  in  his  new  novel  Henry  Is 

47 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

Twenty.  The  hero  of  Temperamental  Henry,  a 
previous  story,  reappears  here,  but  one  need  not 
have  met  the  boy  in  that  story  to  enjoy  the  experi 
ences  of  the  Henry  of  the  older  age.  Mr.  Merwin 
has  gone  into  the  field  that  Eden  Philpofts  explored 
in  his  From  the  Angle  of  Seventeen,  and  that  Booth 
Tarkington  essayed  in  Seventeen,  and  no  reader  will 
say  Mr.  Merwin  has  any  apologies  to  offer  to  either 
of  the  distinguished  writers  for  invading  the  same 
domain." — Philadelphia  Record. 

"It  is  a  commendably  entertaining  book,  poignant, 
piercing,  palpitant.  Possibly  there  are  not  enough 
people  in  the  world  who  are  at  once  unconvention 
ally  minded  and  sympathetic  with  aberrancy  to  make 
such  a  work  a  popular  success — but  one  never  knows. 
One  can  only  hope  that  it  may  reach  those  who  are 
weary  of  the  machine-made  hero  and  can  appreciate 
a  work  of  subtlety  and  finesse." — Reedy' s  Mirror, 
St.  Louis. 

"Inarticulate  genius  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  his 
difficulties.  It  is  not  to  be  expected,  perhaps,  that 
his  home  folk  could  discern,  let  alone  give  recogni 
tion  to,  this  quality  in  Henry.  But  here  we  find 
the  deftness  and  subtle  craft  in  Mr.  Merwin's  work. 
There  is  always  present  an  over-whelming  tempta 
tion  to  emphasize  the  ludicrous  in  Henry's  extremes 
of  behavior.  But  the  author  never  loses  sight  of 
the  governing  impulse  in  his  hero's  character.  Henry 

48 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

ecstatically  in  love,  or  Henry  oppressed  with  some 
thing  to  'live  down,'  never  cuts  a  ridiculous  figure. 
Even  while  his  erratic  behavior  drives  his  friends 
and  well-wishers  to  distraction,  there  shines  through 
his  apparent  instability  of  character  a  quality  of 
strength  and  a  yearning  for  expression  that  incline 
the  reader  to  patience  until  the  youth's  nebulous 
character  solidifies  and  he  finds  its  proper  vocation." 
— Springfield  Republican. 

"Henry's  mad  plunge  into  real  authorship  is  the 
triumph  of  the  book,  and  is  one  of  the  best  things 
of  the  kind  ever  written.  No  one  that  knows  Mr. 
Merwin's  writings  needs  to  be  told  that  the  book 
is  charming  from  beginning  to  end ;  but  it  is  more 
than  fascinating;  it  arouses  the  sympathies,  stirs 
the  imagination,  and  makes  one  gentler  toward  his 
brothers." — Christian  Endeavor  World,  Boston. 

"Mr.  Merwin  has  no  little  real  knowledge  of  the 
heart  of  an  impulsive  youth  of  twenty.  Henry,  as 
we  have  said,  convinces  us  that  he  is  real ;  his  emo 
tional  responsiveness  to  feminine  prettiness,  his 
earnest  but  blundering  efforts  to  teach  his  wayward 
self  concentration  and  purposefulness,  his  alterna 
tions  of  callow  boyishness  and  stalwart  manliness, 
are  true  to  nature — and  appealing." — New  York 
Evening  Post. 

"In  the  main,  Mr.  Merwin  treats  him  with  a  sort 
of  gentle  mercilessness  for  it  is  evident  that  he  loves 

49 


SAMUEL     MERWIN 

his  creation  as  a  father  loves  his  son,  but  he  spares 
no  uncovering  of  Henry's  guileless  heart,  raw  sensi 
bilities  and  over-grown  self-consciousness.  His  in 
sight  into  all  the  quirks  and  contradictions  and 
convolutions  of  the  adolescent  mind  and  soul  is  deep 
and  clear  and  he  makes  all  that  he  sees  luminous  for 
the  reader's  understanding.  But  Henry,  central 
figure  though  he  is  of  the  canvas,  is  only  one  of 
many.  The  story  of  his  twentieth  Summer  entangles 
in  its  threads  numerous  other  characters,  men  and 
women,  and  Mr.  Merwin  tells  it  all  with  the  finest 
art  he  has  yet  shown  in  any  of  his  novels." — New 
York  Times. 

"It  is  keen  understanding  of  the  least  understand 
able  period  and  phases  of  human  life.  Thus  to 
portray  the  adolescent  and  his  salad  problems  may 
seem  to  some  an  almost  frivolous  matter.  It  is  in 
fact  a  more  formidable  undertaking  than  similar 
dealing  with  more  mature  aspects  of  life,  for  a  rea 
son  which  must  be  obvious.  And  the  high  degree 
of  success  which  Mr.  Merwin  has  attained  entitles 
him  to  the  palm  of  literary  merit." — New  York 
Tribune. 

"Mr.  Merwin  has  made  an  exceedingly  fine 
analysis  of  the  psychology  of  boyhood." — The  Inde 
pendent. 

"The  story,  to  our  thinking,  is  a  classic  of  adoles 
cence — so  keen  is  it  and  so  sympathetic,  so  charged 

50 


with  the  wisdom  and  the  gayety  of  age,  yet  so  tender 
to  youth,  its  ignorance,  its  solemnities.  Mr.  Mer- 
win  laughs  at  Henry,  but  the  laughter  has  no  sting; 
it  is,  rather,  a  sort  of  indulgent  chuckle  with  a  note 
of  fondness  in  it  and  of  pride  that  is  almost  paternal." 
— Louisville  Post. 

"There  is  just  this  difference  between  Mr.  Mer- 
win's  Henry  and  Mr.  Barrie's  Tommy — the  latter 
was  sentimental,  the  former,  temperamental.  How 
ever,  the  terms  are  fairly  interchangeable,  only 
Tommy  was  younger ;  hence  his  sentiment  was  less 
dangerous  a  trait.  But  Henry  at  twenty!  Well, 
Mr.  Merwin  \vas  twenty  once  and  he  has  not  for 
gotten  it ;  that  is  the  secret  of  the  success  of  his 
Henry  Is  Twenty.  It  comes  to  you,  fresh,  spon 
taneous — it  is,  in  fact,  Youth  itself.  Youth,  bold, 
daring,  foolish,  rash  and  all  the  other  adjectives 
belonging  to  twenty,  and  they  cluster  about  Henry 
as  a  convolvulus  entwines  itself  about  any  tree  trunk 
within  convenient  reach." — Richmond  (Va.)  Jour 
nal. 


THE    PASSIONATE    PILGRIM 

"Against  a  large  and  dramatic  background  some 
where  in  our  Middle  West,  Mr.  Merwin  has  drawn 
Henry  Calverly  full  length.  One  is  reminded  of 
'ten  league  canvases  and  brushes  of  comet's  hair.' 
His  local  color  is  admirable.  Many  characters, 
widely  divergent,  play  their  parts  in  shaping  Henry's 
life,  in  rounding  it  out  and  bringing  it  to  a  happy  and 
successful  climax.  Life  is  ofttimes  melodramatic, 
and  Mr.  Merwin  is  not  afraid  of  life.  He  has 
written  many  scenes,  exciting,  poignant  and  beauti 
ful.  These  are  unfolded  as  young  Calverly  develops 
from  a  crushed  and  broken  soul  into  a  man  of  pur 
pose  with  hope  in  his  heart  and  love  stretching  out 
its  supposedly  healing  hands  to  him.  The  Passionate 
Pilgrim  is  an  excellent  novel,  remarkably  well 
done." — Baltimore  News. 

"One  of  the  great  scenes  in  The  Passionate  Pil 
grim  describes  the  reawakening  of  his  literary 
'power'  in  the  soul  of  the  discouraged  genius.  A 
big  creative  idea  takes  possession  of  him  in  a  rap 
turous  flood.  He  is  transformed  from  craven  fear, 
despair,  and  subserviency  into  a  young  god.  The 
passion  of  composition  carries  with  it  the  mastery 

52 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

of  men  and  of  events.  The  chapters  that  paint  this 
restoration  are  a  splendid  piece  of  writing." — Boston 
Christian  Endeavor. 

"The  new  novel  is  quiet,  dramatic,  if  you  will, 
but  quiet,  intense,  and  fraught  with  emotion.  It 
is  even  occasionally  morbid,  but  in  the  main  cleverly, 
carefully  quiet.  Thus  it  has  power.  It  is  as  though 
the  novelist,  leaving  those  shifting  currents  of  life 
in  which  he  used  to  be  tossed,  has  reached  the  deep 
water  below." — Boston  Transcript. 

"Although  Mr.  Merwin's  purpose  in  writing  this 
story  was  to  tell  an  entertaining  story,  he  goes  much 
further.  He  gives  a  most  remarkable  demonstration 
of  the  psychology  of  genius,  and  he  expresses, 
through  his  characters,  views  on  many  phases  of  life 
that  cannot  fail  to  awaken  the  interest  of  a  large 
circle  of  readers." — Brooklyn  Standard  Union. 

"Many  characters,  widely  divergent,  play  their 
parts  in  shaping  this  eventful  year  of  Henry  Cal- 
verly's  life,  and  many  scenes,  dramatic  and  beautiful, 
are  unfolded  as  Henry  develops.  The  characters 
are  all  human  and  the  scenes  are  all  natural.  The 
Passionate  Pilgrim  is  easily  Mr.  Merwin's  greatest 
achievement  yet  in  the  world  of  letters." — Brooklyn 
Standard  Union. 

"The  Passionate  Pilgrim  is  a  stimulating  book. 
It  is  written  without  affectation.  It  is  direct;  it  is 
sincere.  It  would  be  worth  while  if  only  for  the 

53 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

sturdy  manner  in  which  it  exposes  our  national 
Puritanism  in  regard  to  our  great  men.  It  is  the 
convincing  revelation  of  this  national  weakness 
which  gives  the  book  its  ethical  value.  It  is  the 
straightforward  manner  in  which  it  tells  a  compli 
cated  and  interesting  story  which  gives  it  literary 
value." — Detroit  News  Tribune. 

"Having  read  this  book  with  unusual  interest 
and  enjoyment,  we  cordially  commend  it  to  our 
readers  as  a  strong,  stirring  and  distinctly  superior 
story." — Hartford  Courant. 

"A  novel  that  can  be  strongly  recommended  to 
discriminating  readers  in  search  of  entertaining  fic 
tion  is  Samuel  Merwin's  The  Passionate  Pilgrim. 
It  is,  perhaps,  not  too  much  to  say  that  its  delinea 
tion  of  American  Life  and  character  and  its  glimpses 
into  some  of  our  interlocking  social,  commercial  and 
political  conditions  make  it  the  most  striking  novel 
of  the  season." — Indianapolis  Star. 

"We  have  no  desire  to  spoil  a  superb  story  by 
telling  it.  This  is  one  certain  to  tell  itself  to  a 
million  or  more  appreciative  and  delighted  readers." 
— Los  Angeles  Examiner. 

"The  story  is  told  in  Mr.  Merwin's  usual  cap 
tivating  vein,  its  keen  analysis  of  human  qualities 
being  true  to  nature  and  garnished  with  a  humor 
that  is  altogether  pleasing.  The  Passionate  Pilgrim 

54 


SAMUEL     M  ERWIN 

is  a  worthy  sequel  to  its  predecessors." — Philadelphia 
Evening  Ledger. 

"Mr.  Merwin  believes  that  life  is  largely  melo 
dramatic.  Right.  He  aims  to  tell  an  absorbing  story. 
He  does.  He  aims  to  utter,  naturally,  and  in  place, 
through  the  mouths  of  his  characters,  views  on  news 
papers,  modern  advertising,  American  small  city 
politics,  the  writing  of  biography  and  a  fairish  lot 
of  other  subjects.  And  he  gets  away  with  it  abso 
lutely,  or  at  least  99.44  per  cent,  of  the  time.  This 
is,  in  fact,  his  greatest  achievement  in  The  Passion 
ate  Pilgrim  because,  as  any  experienced  story  teller 
will  tell  you,  it  is  the  most  difficult  essay  possible 
in  fiction.  Fiction  and  such  things  don't  ordinarily 
mix  at  all.  But  Mr.  Merwin  has  been  more  than 
ordinarily  cunning.  He  has  dissolved  his  powder 
in  his  potion.  You'll  hardly  taste  it.  And  if  you 
do — after  all,  you  may  rather  like  the  taste." — New 
York  Sun. 


HILLS   OF   HAN 

"By  the  time  we  had  crossed  the  China  sea  and 
were  anchored  in  the  muddy  Woosung  off  Shanghai 
I  was  ready  to  admit  that  Samuel  Merwin  had  read 
wisely  and  well  of  the  Far  East.  When  he  touched 
in  an  easy,  familiar  way  on  Hankow  and  Peking 
I  was  willing  to  grant  that^r**  had  possibly  taken  a 
tourist's  survey  from  the  windows  of  the  Peking- 
Hankow  express.  But  when  we  picked  up  the  dusty 
road  leading  into  the  Hills  of  Han  my  last  doubt 
disappeared.  On  every  page  I  found  scenes  that 
took  me  back  to  the  land  where  I  spent  my  child 
hood." — Chicago  Daily  News. 

"The  book  is  merely  a  mature  piece  of  work,  the 
outgrowth  of  a  dozen  years  of  brooding,  the  whole 
plot  being  based  on  hard-earned  first-hand  experience 
and  knowledge.  The  thing  came  about  this  way: 
Thirteen  years  ago  I  was  sent  out  to  China  and  on 
around  the  world  by  a  magazine  to  make  a  journal 
istic  study  of  the  opium  problem.  I  spent  several 
months  in  China  and  during  that  time  traveled  up 
the  Yangtse-Kiang  to  Hankow  and  through  north 
central  China  via  the  Hankow-Peking  railway.  I 
wandered  through  parts  of  Shansi  Province,  north- 

56 


SAMUEL     M  ERWI N 

western  China,  traveling  by  cart  and  mule-litter, 
and  sleeping  in  native  inns.  At  the  city  of  Fai 
Yuan-fu  (the  Tainan-fu  of  Hills  of  Han),  I  was 
placed  under  arrest  because  of  a  difficulty  over  a 
passport,  and  also  because  I  was  thought  to  be  an 
investigator  or  spy  for  a  European  mining  concern 
which  was  at  that  time  a  cause  of  trouble  in  the 
province.  I  had  later  to  appear  before,  a  mandarin 
of  high  degree,  who  supplied  me  with  a  mounted 
soldier  and  guard  that  stayed  with  me  until  I  got 
back  to  the  railroad,  and  who  went  to  some  trouble 
to  inform  me  regardiro  the  local  problems.  Thus, 
while  I  saw  no  such  actual  fighting  as  takes  place 
in  the  story,  still  the  background  narrative  over  the 
trouble  with  the  'Ho-Shan  Company'  is  based  on 
first-hand  observation  of  a  similar  controversy.  At 
one  time  during  my  travels  in  the  Chinese  interior, 
I  spent  nearly  all  of  a  night  listening  to  the  con 
fession  of  a  missionary  who  felt  that  he  had  chosen 
the  wrong  calling,  but  that  the  discovery  had  come 
too  late  in  his  life.  The  situation  seemed  to  me, 
even  then,  to  contain  the  germ  of  a  drama.  Many 
times  during  the  past  dozen  years  I  have  taken  out 
my  notes  of  those  days  and  looked  them  over,  but 
the  drama  (for  Hills  of  Han  seems  essentially  to  me 
dramatic)  did  not  take  form  in  my  mind  until  the 
winter  of  1918-1919,  when  it  suddenly  combined 
itself  with  some  old  documents  of  the  gentry  and 

57 


people  I  had  made  quotations  from  while  in  the 
heart  of  China  during  the  period  following  my 
arrest.  All  in  a  moment  almost  the  present  story 
took  form.  I  sat  down  at  once — it  happened  to  be 
in  a  New  York  hotel,  and  I  was  supposed  to  be 
working  at  a  play — and  wrote  the  opening  chapters 
straight  off.  The  girl,  Betty,  stepped  into  the  story 
just  as  she  is.  Her  father,  Griggsby  Doane,  stepped 
in  right  after  her,  full  size;  and  I  felt  at  once  that 
I  had  long  known  and  loved  him.  Branchey,  too — 
curious  wanderer — sprang  at  once  into  life.  And  as 
a  result  of  twelve  years  of  brooding  in  some  half- 
glimpsed  subconscious  region,  the  whole  story  very 
nearly  wrote  itself.  It  was  a  joy  to  do  from  start 
to  finish." — Interview  with  Samuel  Merwin,  in 
Boston  Post. 

"The  definite  knowledge  of  this  field  possessed  by 
the  author,  coupled  with  keen  insight  and  the 
dramatic  power  of  producing  actual  people  and  situa 
tions,  serves  to  produce  a  novel  of  unusual  sub 
stance  and  interest." — Washington  Star. 

"Unless  there  is  some  monstrous  falling  off  in  the 
last  hundred  pages  of  Samuel  Merwin's  Hills  of 
Han,  we  have  at  last  succeeded  in  finding  an  adven 
ture  story  which  is  not  written  wholly  for  children 
and  moving  picture  fans.  There  is  incident  enough 
in  the  book  to  please  the  most  exacting  reader,  and 

58 


yet  it  is  all  developed  sanely  and  logically." — New 
York  Tribune, 

"The  most  interesting  figure  in  the  book  is  Griggsby 
Doane,  who  has  outgrown  the  narrow  dogmas  of 
his  evangelical  denomination  and  only  through  suf 
fering  and  what  he  regards  as  terrible  sin  wins 
through  to  freedom  and  peace.  The  interior  of 
China,  its  mandarins  with  their  subtle  and  devious 
policies  and  their  ceremonial,  the  point  of  view  of 
young  China  combining  the  culture  of  the  West  with 
the  apathy  and  fatalism  of  the  East — all  this  is  strik 
ingly  pictured,  with  the  result  that  the  book  makes 
an  appeal  for  more  reasons  than  its  story." — In 
dianapolis  News. 

"Personally,  the  reviewer  can  say  that  Hills  of 
Han  is  one  of  those  all-night  books;  once  reading 
you  must  reach  the  end  before  you  turn  to  other 
tasks.  This  is  Mr.  Merwin's  knack,  a  gift  made 
perfect  by  the  practise  of  more  than  a  dozen  novels." 
— Detroit  News. 


Mr.  Merwin's   Novels 

The  Citadel  The  Trufflers 

Temperamental  Henry 

Henry  Is  Twenty 
The  Passionate  Pilgrim 

In  Red  and  Gold 

Anthony  the  Absolute 

Hills  of  Han  The  Honey  Bee 

The  Charmed  Life  of  Miss  Austin 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY,  Publishers 


A     000  783  371     8 


